Whitelisting which config variables may be changed via HTTP -----------------------------------------------------------
Key: COUCHDB-835 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-835 Project: CouchDB Issue Type: New Feature Components: HTTP Interface Affects Versions: 1.0 Environment: Linux, Erlang R13B03 Reporter: Jason Smith Priority: Minor A database rite of passage is partitioning responsibility into system administrators and DBAs. CouchDB has reached this point. Congratulations! The _config API allows changing the .ini file completely over authenticated HTTP, without requiring the CouchDB admin to log in to the server OS. Unfortunately, some configuration settings are OS-oriented (http.port, couchdb.view_index_dir); others are strictly database settings (uuids.algorithm); and still others must be decided case-by-case (log.level, couchdb.max_document_size). In short, CouchDB should support a whitelist, with which the system administrator can specify which _config values are may be modified by the DBA, and which are read-only. I propose that this whitelist is itself a config option, httpd.config_whitelist. If it is undefined, there is no whitelist and no change of behavior. If specified, the whitelist is an Erlang list of 2-tuples of the format: [{section1, key1}, {section2, key2}, {section_with_wildcard, "*"}, ...] When processing a PUT or DELETE, CouchDB confirms inclusion of the section/key in the whitelist. I foresee two modes of operation: * DBA is top dog: The whitelist includes {httpd,config_whitelist} itself. Thus the DBA may modified the list later over HTTP. The whitelist is just a safeguard against accidental changes. * Sysadmin is top dog: The whitelist does not include {httpd,config_whitelist}. The DBA is unable to change the list and may only ask politely for updates to the policy. (In any case, you can always edit the .ini file and _restart from the server OS.) -- This message is automatically generated by JIRA. - You can reply to this email to add a comment to the issue online.